My savior, my guidance, my friend
by Ranekaera
Summary: A girl is born to parents in the human world and goes to the monster world in time to save one Randall Boggs from self destruction, FRIENDSHIP, movie tie in FINALLY, AFTER 6 YEARS A NEW UPDATE
1. Magda

Hey, Ranekaera here, but you all know me as Zavier, while some of my friends on the Harry Potter section may know me as Saoirse, but whatever my name, I'M BACK.

Disclaimer: I own Monsters Inc. I also own the Cinderella castle, Buckingham palace, Hot dogs, the invention of TV and all the quilts in the world. No, seriously. I don't own this, nor do I own any of the above; I'm just borrowing a few characters to use for my own twisted enjoyment.

PLOT: A girl is born in the human world to two banished monster parents, who shall not be mentioned because they are not important. She comes to Monstropolis and manages to steer Randall away from his suicidal tendencies, as well as Waternoose's plan. She is bhis savior, his guidance and his friend. Set back when Randall was 19 or so.

As always, feedback is accepted, so please, please review. Yes, I am talking to you, Sean Fogle. HA, kidding. Seriously. REVIEW:) I'll give everyone digital brownies!!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

_Prologue..._

The two monsters stood on the edge of the forest in the human world, facing a vast, empty plain filled with long, wild grass. The male had red tentacles and horns and was reptillian in stature; the female was mostly green with brown hair and long, dragon-like wings from her back. She was also heavy with a child. And she was going into labor.

Neither one of them had wanted this; they had both been banished years ago, and had long since figured out that humans weren't toxic, but all the same, neither one of them wanted to end up on some human's examination table.

"Here is as good a place as any, Julie," said the man, turning to the woman.

"I dunno, Cal. Should we even keep it?"

"Of course. It'll be much happier on its own. You know they come into this field when they hunt. Remember that book you found in that trash heap? They _always_ take kids in and raise them," the man tried reasoning with her.

Earlier in her pregnancy, they had come across a trash heap, upon which he had found a book called "The Jungle Book". He knew wolves sometimes hunted in this meadow. He was sure they would find the newborn and take it in. This world was just too dangerous for a child, and both of them were too old.

"Lie down, that's it," he urged her, and he helped her lay on her back on the dank earth, crushing the grass and wheat stems beneath her. Her skin was distended and a lighter shade of green on her belly, and another contraction hit her.

"Push," said the man.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

What seemed like an eternity later, the man held his child in his arms. It was a girl, with reptillian attributes, l,arge, round green eyes, smooth, unmarked, light storm-colored skin and dark red hair.

They named her Magda and left her in the meadow with a ragged, dirty blue blanket bearing her name in marker. And that was where she was found by a man out hunting with his dogs and younger son.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"What d'you reckon she is?"

The man had brought her to his log cabin, and he and his wife were trying to figure out what the little thing was.

"She looks like one of those things we keep gettin' flashes of in the woods. But she don't seem dangerous. She's so cute... we should keep her, honey," insisted his wife.

"Magda..." said the man, reading the name on the ragedy blanket. It smelled to high heaven, and he threw it into the trash can to be tossed.

"What a strange name... well... Magda it is, then," the man added nonchalantly, and he handed the slippery newborn to his wife to clean and coddle as she would and headed into the living room to watch a football game and drink a cold beer.

Meanwhile, his wife was bundling the girl up in a fresh, cloean blanket.

"Magda Emily Britain," she said, and the baby smiled.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Well, hope you like it. This one was just to tell how she was born, where, and who she was raised by. Next chapter jumps to when she is introduced to the monster world. PLEASE REVIEW!!!


	2. Speedy childhood, and a new world

Ok, here's the deal, and THANK YOU to Sylverstryke for reviewing. He/she (sorry, not sure, bio didn't say- sorry!) Is the only one so far, and I must say, I was a bit hurt. Then again, no one reviewed my other fics on M.I. much, either. My harry potter fics seem to be the go getters.

Ok, I left it off from where she was a newborn, and I know I kind of went through it a bit fast, but it wasn't the focal point of the story.That she was born at all was important, I suppose, but I didn't want to get into gory specifics, if you know what I mean.

So again, I'm afraid I fast forwarded a bit here. Just a glaze over her childhood, growing up with an older "brother" and in the middle of nowhere... just read on.

Please, review!

SASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

From Magda's point of view, her childhood was peaceful. Cozy. Very comfortable and fair. Her "adoted" parents never let her stray farther than the meadow or the woods, and they never let her go into town, but they rented movies and let her watch them, they hired a tutor to home school her, if said tutor promised to keep his mouth shut, that was. She lived with her older "brother" Matt and her adopted parents, Bill and Mary for eighteen comfortable years. If she was a bit rebellious, it was only normal; she wasn't allowed to go anywhere, and the only friends she had were the family, the dog and their pet horse, Nag.

Until HE came.

She supposed he had seen her cavorting in the meadow with Bill's dog and Matt, because she had certainly never summoned _him._

That night, he had snuck in through her bedroom window and kidnapped her.

When she awoke, she had found herself in a different world.

Michael had taken her to her rightful world. The monster world, through a child's bedroom closet. He told her she could go anywhere she liked here, and no one would think her different. And then he had asked her out on a date.

If you asked her, it was a damn strange way to be introduced to an alternate reality.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

_five months later..._

"I'm not trying to avoid you, Michael."

"Bullshit, Maggy. You haven't called or even said hi in the last month and a half!"

"I've been busy! I do need to pay the rent on this place, you know."

"Don't even lie to me. We're over, you hear? I dunno why I even brought you here in the first place, you freak."

"I don't know why either. I have nothing more to say to you, Mike. What's done is done and I think I'm going to live my life how I want to now. Don't call back."

CLICK

Magda sighed. Her brief relationship with Mike had been awkward enough, but this new placewas strange enough without an awkward, posessive boyfriend to complicate things. She had only just gotten her first job and apartment, and she was quite proud of herself for having accomplished at least that much. She wasn't used to the city, had never been to on at_ all_. It was noisy, far too loud, and she knew no one except a couple of her co-workers.

Monstropolis was indeed a strange place to her.

From the fact that people used human screams to fuel their everyday needs, to the fact that not one of them looked similar.

She herself had light cloudy teal skin, stood on two legs like a human, but was curvy and reptillian in appearance. Her dark red hair formed a wavy, untamed curtain down her back and she had huge, dragonish wings and long, curving horns. A lot of people on the streets gave her strange looks, like they found her attractive or something. She, of course, ignored them. She wanted to learn more.

And her family must be having kittens about where she had gone off to.

She sighed and wished she could write them a letter, but she knew from what Mike had told her that communication with humans was strictly prohibited. He had never told her what HE had been doing there. _Lying creep_, she thought. She would figure out how to see her family or write them a letter if it was the last thing she did, and with that thought, she grabbed a book off the shelf, titled _A monster history_, and began to read.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I'm having difficulty deciding on something, so please review and help me out here.

What I have written down on paper is that there wasa a job fair and THAT was how she discovered Monsters Incorporated and saw her family again and met randall and the whole shebang... or should her desire to see her family and let them know she's alright be her motivation?

PLEASE REVIEW!!!


	3. Randall Matthew Boggs, teenage monster

This is one of those "meanwhile" chappies... PLEASE review!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

At about the same time Magda hung up on her now ex-boyfriend, Randall Boggs sat in his bedroom in his parent's home on the outskirts of Monstropolis.

It wasn't a very attractive house; single roof, paint peeling, doorknob broken. The inside only had two bedrooms, one for his father and one for himself. It was always a mess, and Randall was neat. He tried to clean up wherever possible, so his father didn't have an excuse to nag at him like he always did when he drank.

Right now, he sat curled up in his desk chair, staring out at the bleak weather; it was raining.

He was a thin lizard monster, lilac colored scales, blue patterned down his serpentine back, eight arms and legs and a mouth full of steak-knife teeth. He was paler than usual because he was about to shed his skin any time now, but that wasn't what was worrying him.

Tomorrow, he had school.

It wasn't his school work or his teachers that bothered him; it was everyone and everything else.

He sighed, shivered, and gazed longingly as a few monster teenagers went by his house, jeering and laughing at him through his window. No matter what he did to fit in, he was never accepted. His father ignored him most of the time. His teachers thought him a brilliant but reclusive teenager, and they never said a word. It was like he was living in a fog where he was invisible all the time. He dreaded going back tomorrow; not many people in his school like reptillian monsters, and he figured he was one of the reasons why.

Resigning himself to it, he got to his four feet and began gathering all his school things; he may as well get started on his homework. Only two more months of this high school hell, and he'd be free. Free to call himself an adult and get a job where people would accept him. Or maybe he was only fooling himself. Maybe he'd never be accpeted.

All he could do was let the tide of life sweep him away, take him where it would, and hope.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

holds out a tray of brownies no brownies till people review!!


	4. The letter

Hey, finally a new update, and many thanks to SylverStryke, for all their kind reviews!!

She finally finds a wway to contact her family...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Magda sighed and slumped further down in the ratty, overstuffed chair she'd managed to filch from the side of a back road in Monstropolis and studied the notepad in front of her.

She was writing a note to her mother and father, telling them not to worry, Her only problem was how she was going to get it to them.

_Dear mom and dad, and Matt, if you're there,_

_I'm fine, and perfectly safe. Someone, another monster like me, took me away to where they all come from, another world called the Monster World. That's what I am. I'm a monster, but it's not a bad thing, we're like a whole different species. And we're not that different from humans, really._

_The problem is, I'm not sure how to get back to you guys. I know there's a way but I don't think I'm allowed. Monsters here think humans are toxic to touch, so no way they'd just let me walk through the portal they have here._

_I'm just writing this letter, in case I ever find a way to get ahold of you. I really miss you and I hope you aren't worrying too much. Tell Matt he IS NOT ALLOWED in my room, or to rent it out for a party or something, cause I know it would pop into his head to do something like that. Love you, Matt!_

_Not sure what to write, so I'll try to get this to you. I am perfectly fine. I have a small apartment. It's not much, but it's enough to live in. I don't know many people here yet, and I know that if I can find someone with access to the portal they have, I can get to you, but I need to look around first._

_Much love,_

_Magda_

She thought it looked alright. There was no sense in telling them that her job was quickly going downhill, or that the rent on her small, modest apartment was going to quickly overpower her. Or that she was beginning to have nightmares stranger than ones she normally had. It would only worry them more and she needed them to believe she was alright. _She_ needed to believe she was alright.

She tore the letter out of the notebook and folded it up neatly, tossing said notebook on a ratty old endtable made from a couple milk crates and a piece of plywood. (A/N: The best way to make yourself at home on a low budget!! hahahaha)

She stuffed it into an unmarked envelope, and labeled it in big, loopy letters, Mary, Matt and Bill.

She breathed deep and stood up, tucking her wings behind her. She walked over to the small window and looked out, her hands on the window glass, her face pressed close, looking out. It was fall, and the leaves on what trees there were had turned blazing orange and yelow-gold and red. They'd be pretty, if there were more of them. She hated the city. It was opressing and bleak, noisy and rude.

She pulled on a thin jacket with holes in the back for her wings and headed out the door, remembering to grab her name tag on the way out. It read simply, _Magda Britain_.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She worked at a local grocery store, run by a large, orange, rather nasty man named Brock. He resembled a huge pumpkin, only he had four arms.

"You're late," he growled as she hurried in and grabbed an apron off a rack. She hastily pinned her nametag to the front of it and smoothed the simple, knee-length skirt she'd had on since she got there.

"I know, I'm sorry, but I had to walk again," she said patiently, and she immediately headed straight for the shiny butcher's cleaver on a cuttin board. Her job was to cut the meat and _only_ to cut the meat. She's already chopped a finger off, but strangely, it had grown back by morning. (A/N: Inherited from her father's tentacle-like hands, things with tentacles hav a tendency to regrow them)

"One more time, and you're fired," he snarled, and he shoved a cap on her head to restrain her unruly, tangled hair.

She resigned herself to the dull, monotinous chopping sound as she cut the meat for the customers. Sometimes, she felt like her job really wasn't worth it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

She didn't get off until later that very night, around 9:00. She heard another customer come in and automatically poked her head up so she could see through the small window set into the wall, showing the front of the store. The man who had just walked in was round, green and one-eyed.

"Yeeah, hey, can I get a couple pounds of mow?"he asked.

"Hey, how's work at Monsters Inc going, Mikey?" growled Brock. Magda froze. Monsters Inc was where Michael had worked. They had doors! She could send her letter!!

Magda immediately began cuttin slabs of the strange, squashy purple meat and weighed it at two pounds. She wrapped it and brought her letter out from a pocket in her skirt. She folded it up and wrote a hastily scribbled note on the side of it. _Please send this through the cabin door in northern Vermont, it's my only hope._ She tied it and shoved it through the window, hoping beyond hope that Brock wouldn't notice it.

The green monster took the meat, saw the envelope, appeared to read it and frowned slightly. Wildly fearfull that he;d tear it out and ask Brock what it was, she waved her arms above her head at him from the little window and mouthed, "_It's mine! mine!"_

Thankfully, the one eyed monster shrugged, glancing at her curiously, smiled toothily and waved at her.

As he left, Brock gave her a suspicious look and said nothing.

Heart racing furiously, Magda sighed wearily and ran a shaking hand through her hair beneath the cap she wore.

"Clock out," he growled, and Magda wasted no time. She tore off her apron and cap so fast, one might have thought she was in a hurry to go somewhere.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She raced outside and caught the one-eyed monster just as he was about to hop into a red sports car.

"Wait!" she called to him, and he stared at her.

"What's with the envelope, kid?" he asked, waving it at her. It was stained with juices from the meat, but otherwise fine.

"It's for my family in the human world. I was born there and raised by humans. I need to get that to them so they don't worry! They live in Lewis. Vermont. Please... I have no other way. Can you take it there?" she said hurriedly. She didn't much care how fast the explained things, and she belonged here. They had no reason to kick her out.

"Whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa, kid, slow down. You were born in the human world... and raised by humans, right?" he asked, holding his hands up for her to stop.

"Yeah," she replied.

"And you want me to take this to them?" he asked.

"Please," she said, and now she was pleading with the guy. She hoped she was putting enough sincerity in her expression. She must have been, because the man's eye softened and he glanced at the envelope again, looking worried.

"Alright, fine. I can sneak you in tomorrow and you can give it to them, but I'm not losin' my job over this!" he exclaimed, and he patted the seat next to him.

She uncertainly opened the door and sat down next to him.

"Where d'ya live?" he asked.

"284 Freehaul lane. Apartment 6b," she said quietly. She'd never spoken to another monster aside from Michael or Brock at any length.

"Alright, I'll be by tomorr wot pick you up, but I can only guarantee ya ten minutes. I'm not a scarer, I'm not allowed in the doors. Sulley can wait for ya," he said. She didn't know how to reply to that, she she said nothing at all.

Sometimes, when a total stranger decided to help you, silence was best.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Please review!!!!!


	5. Icy cold steel, the help of a stranger

Hey, halloween was great!! I walked around dressed as a witch in my homemade robes and stuff with about 6 other people, but eventually, the kids got tired and we just drove around in the back of a pickup truck, stopping occasionally for houses. Halloween is the best.

Anyway, on with the story.

Randall isn't feeling too happy...

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Icy autumn wind that bore signs of winter tore through the outskirts of the monster city. It blew dead leaves across the ground, making a dry, dead rustle as they hit the asphalt. It was weather that was oddly calming, yet cold. No reptile should be out and about in weather like this without a coat on.

And yet Randall was there, a thick blue scarf wrapped tightly around huis throat and a thin, holey sweater covering his midsection. He hadn't been clothes shopping in years, and most of the things he owned were thin and well-worn. He shivered, watching the goungs-on of the big city he lived on the edge of. His house was the last for about two miles, where he knew there were a few ratty apartments and derilect buildings.

He held something in his left upper hand and he looked at it now, getting lost in its icy cool depths. He marveled at its deathly cold appeal and sighed, wondering if he had the nerve. But not just yet. Someone was coming p the road. Musn't let them see him.

He darted behind a few bushes overgrown with some osrt of tangled vine and watched. It was a girl dressed even less than he was. Tangled, long red hair, horns, wings, gray-blue skin, nothing but a skirt and a nametag pinned to it was all she had.

He let her walk past, marveling at the way her wings moved, the webbing membranes between the leeathery folds moved in and out, stretching and convulsing gracefully... he wondered if she could fly. He would love to be able to fly; fly away from everything and everyone.

He fingered the thing in his hand once more, and his mind was made up.

He brought the scalpel down on his arm and welcomed the feeling.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Magda had seen the boy, of course.

She'd gotten home, thanked Mikey for the ried, but had been unable to collect her thoughts. She had decided to go for a walk to clear her mind. Anticipation minxed with anxiety and fear made her restless, and more alert than ever. She had noticed the boy long before he had decided to hide.

She walked on, hardly concerned, not even caring that he seemed to be her age, or that her greatest attribute was being calm and eager in the face of new places.

Up ahead of her was nothing but road stretching to nowhere, the forests beginning, and she smiled. Here at last were the trees and leaves and grass that she so missed from home.

She looked over her shoulder for a moment, to see the city behind her, and she saw the boy from before; he was slumped on the ground. A slight frown creased her forehead as she squinted to see better. He was holding something shiny...

She knew it was none of her concern, and that she should just walk away, but something compelled her to double back and see what was the matter with him.

As she got closer, she saw the blood.

"Holy shit..." she muttered, and she kneeled before him and grabbed hhis scarf from around his neck. He was bleeding from the gash in his arm, the scalpel still in his hand, but he was lucid and conscious enough to protest.

"Stop, I want this," he said sharply, but she would have none of it.

She made a tourniquet of sorts to stop the bleeding, then grabbed the scalpel and chucked it away as far as she could. She wasn't really the sentimental type, but she was warmhearted and liked people. Seeing her friends, or what friends she had ever had, in a state like this always worried her.

"What the hell were you doing?!" she exclaimed, stretching her wings to their full extent, a good six feet out or so.

The boy glared at her with the greenest eyes she had ever seen, bright and intelligent. He shot her a look full of venom and growled, baring sharp teeth.

"What's it look like?" he said sarcastically.

"Killing yourself, obviously. Why on earth would you want to do that?" she asked, her voice softening, becoming more curious.

"My life sucks, is why. Leamme alone," he spat, and he got to his feet again and made to go back into the house and up to his room. He had been thwarted.

Slightly hurt that he hadn't at least been a little gratefull, Magda got to her feet as well, holding back tears. She didn't like rejection and she didn't like not understanding something.

She stood there for a few more minutes, even after he had gone inside, and wondered if she shouldn't come out here again sometime, maybe to talk or see how he was doing. But that was something councelors did, and she wasn't one.

She decided to go back home, forget about the boy and look forward to tomorrow. She wondered what on earth could make the boy so miserable that he wouldn't want to see _any_ tomorrow.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I DO have future chapters in mind, so keep your knickers on, hahaha. He ignored her once, but will HE forget HER? BWAHAHAHAHAH (evil laugh) evil cliffhanger of doom! Please review!!


	6. Tomorrow

Hell, and thanks to PitbullLady for her wonderful review. No, Randall probably isn't a true reptile. I think that just for character purposes, I made him seem like one because he is a teenager who is easily influenced by outside sources. He's vulnerable in this story because of his age and his frame of mind. I may change it later, but for now, he's therapsidian. (combining mammalian and reptillian attributes)

As always, PLEASE REVIEW!!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She couldn't sleep.

She sat up and sighed in the dark, looking out her lonely window at the night sky. She wondered if Matt or Mary or Bill were wondering where she was. They couldn't call the cops and report her missing; technically, in the eyes of the human public, she never existed, and Mary and Bill didn't have a daughter. But here she was. Alone. In a world she knew almost nothing about.

She sighed again and looked over at the cheap alarm clock she'd managed to srounge up from somewhere. It was 3 in the morning.

Again, she thought of the look on the lizard boy's face as she helped him the day before. She wasn't stupid; she knew he would hurt himself again. She hoped he would be alright. She planned to make something for him, some cookies, perhaps, for an early halloween present, later after she returned from Monsters Incorporated. She didn't know why, but she couldn't get him off her mind.

She slid off of her mattress and into what passed for her living room and sank into her chair. She was anxious about possibly seeing her chosen family again, she knew it, but she musn't get her hopes up now... it wouldn't do to get them up only in case she didn't get hold of them. She remembered something Bill used to tell her when she was younger. _Gettin' your hopes up can bring you down_.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

A loud, shattering horn woke her up. She was ready to jump up out of bed and instead crashed to the floor. She must have dozed off in her chair. How graceful, she thought, as she extricated herself from the chair.

She ran to the window and saw Mikey's car down below. He was waiting for her.

Quick as she could, she pulled her only article of clothing on and ran downstairs to meet him.

"Don't you ever wear anything else, kid?" he asked her as she opened the front door. Sitting beside him was an enormous, blue furry guy with small horns and a big, kind-looking face. She thought he looked a bit like John Goodman. Odd.

"Everything else I own is in the human world," she admitted, and she climbed into the backseat, behind the blue furry guy.

He twisted around in his seat and held one huge, furry paw out to her.

"Name's Sulley," he said. She blinked and shook his proferred hand. He even _sounded_ a bit like John Goodman.

"Magda," she replied.

"Nice to meet you," said Sulley.

Mikey put the car in gear and began to drive.

He drove her beyond even the little grocery store she worked at, into the heart of downtown. There were even fewer trees here, but there were lots of monster kids waiting for the school bus. She smiled sadly; it was one of the small pleasures in childhood she had never gotten to do.

When the car stopped at last, they were in the biggest parking lot she had never (or ever) seen. It was gargantuan. Enormous. Bigger than cathedral-sized. And it was filled with cars.

The factory loomed ahead, a smaller building at the front, taller at the back, and behind all of it, the refinery plant Michael had told her about.

"Here we are, kid. Sulley'll take you to the door, I have paperwork to do," said Mikey, and Sulley got out and opened her door before she even got her seatbelt off. (A/N: Mikey never got into the habit of not doing paperwork until he met celia, heeheehee)

"Umm... thanks," she said, a little awed by his size; he was at least three feet taller than her. She as only 5'6".

"Follow me," he said, smiling courteously, and she led the way into the very center of Monsters Incorporated.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The inside was cavernous enough, but what awed her was the mosaic on the domed ceiling. It was a map of the world, like an enormous atlas painstakingly put together piece by tiled piece.

There were several doorways leading off to one hall or another, and Sulley led her into one marked "scare floors".

"I'm gonna sneak you into Roz's office to get the right card key, so ssshhh!" Sulley warned in a deadly whisper. He led her down a wide, clean hall with linoleum tiles and up ahead, she saw her very first scarefloor. Scarefloor F.

"Ssshh," he warned again, and she nodded and folded her wings close to her back so they didn't bump anything and send it crashing to the floor.

Sulley and Mike must have planned this ahead of time, she marveled, because at that moment, they both heard a tremendous crash leading directly away from the office to their left.

"That's Mikey," said Sulley, and they both hid around the corner as a slug-like woman with ratty hair and a yellow vest slithered her way out of her office, grumbling something about "time wasters".

"Come one!" he urged her, and they both slid inside the office.

It was meticulously neat, was her first thought. She saw filing cabinet upon filing cabinet, all alphabetized, all according to countries.

"Lewis, Vermont," she whispered, and Sulley began browsing the cabinets. Finally, he pulled open a drawer marked "Eas. coast, VT".

"Lewis, lewis, lewis..." he muttered as he rifled through them all.

"Here," he said, shoving half a dozen folders into her arms. He slammed the cabinet shut and practically shoved her back out through the door.

"Hide!" he urged her frantically.

She huged the folders close to her chest and wrapped her wings around her front to hide them from sight. She saw two doors. Excellent, bathrooms. Perfect.

She dove into the one marked FEMALE.

She didn't stop to breath agian until she was safelly closeted inside a bathroom stall.

"Alright, then," she muttered to herself, once she had got her heartbeat back to normal.

She opened the first folder she came to. Bracknell road... too far away from home... Medulla... ehh, never heard of it... hmm...Aha!" she said, because at openeing the third folder she came to, which looked quite old, she found one with her exact street on it. She frowned slightly at the name inside of it.

"Matthew Silas Britain..." she mused. Then it made sense. This must be her brother's old file from when he was a kid. She almost laughed at the coincidence of it. In any case, she didn't need the other folders now.

She once more hugged her wings close to her body to hide them from sight and approached Roz's desk once more.

"Can I help you?' she said in a slow, nasal voice that sounded like cloth on gravel.

"Yeah, I um, found these on the floor, near scarefloor B," she said, slightly nervous, and she unfolded her wings and handed the slug woman the folders she didn't need, tucking the one shs did need safely under one wing.

"Very good, run along" said the woman, annoyed, and she grabbed them and set them next to her.

She decided to skidaddle before Roz realised she didn't belong there.

She walked out onto the scarefloor and found it completely deserted. Only Sulley and Mikey were there. Mike ywas going through different colored paper and Sulley merely sat on the edge of a desk looking bored.

"Did'ja get one?" asked Mikey.

"The exact address," she said brightly, hardly containing her excitement.

"Good!" said Mikey, albeit a bit sarcastically, and he grabbed the card key, which she only now saw, and slid it through a slot machine next to what could only be a door station.

There was an almighty grinding noise, a series of loud thumps, and a battered-looking wooden door came barreling out of a huge hole in the side of the wall near the ceiling to her left. It was her brother's bedroom door!!

"Here's the envelope, kid," said Mikey, and he handed her the meat stained letter she'd written the day before.

The door landed in its station and a light came on near the top.

"Wish me luck," she said. Neither one said anything.

"Good luck," Sulley said after a moment's pause.

She reached for the doorknob.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

DUH DUH DUUUUHHH!!! I COULD make this a cliffhanger 'o doom... shall I?

Hmm... nah. I couldn't stand the suspense. You got a break this time!!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She opened the door and stepped into the room, closing it behind her. She hoped Sulley and Mikey wouldn't send the door back, although if they did, she could just try her wings and fly out, wherever the door vault was. They had to be kept somewhere.

"Mags?"

She spun around and saw her older brother Matt standing there in the doorway. Their faces broke out into grins and she ran to hug him.

"Oh my god, where have you _been_?? Do you have ANY idea what Bill and Mary are going through?? They think you were killed!!" he excalimed, holding her by the shoulders, his tan human skin contrasting heavily with her pale, mottled storm-colored skin.

"What???" she yelped, eyes wide. Killed? What on earth had Michael left behind as an explanation?!

"Where are they?" she asked, truly concerned.

"Follow me," said Matt, and he led the way out of his room, even though she knew perfectly well how to get around this house.

He led her into the cheerfully lit kitchen and she saw Mary, cutting some vegetble or other, her face very blotchy and her eyes red. Her gray hair, which had once been brown, lay down her back in a messy plait.

"Mary?" she said tentatively.

She looked up and for a moment no one said anything.

"Bill!! She's here!!" she cried joyfully, and she ran forward, abandoning her cutting knife, and wrapped Magda in a bone-crushing hug, pinning her wings to her back quite painfully.

Bill came gallumping into the kitchen and for a moment, Mary just stood there smiling and crying. Magda smiled back. She may be different in mor ways than one, different even in species, but she knew one thing; this family had found her and taken her in and they loved her. And that was all that mattered. It was all you really needed to have a family. People who loved you.

If only she could let the lizard boy from yesterday know that. She was sure he wouldn't be so glum.

"Where on earth have you been?" Bill demanded, half overjoyed, half angry. He too, hugged her, and she handed them both her letter. She was too happy to tell them.

She leaned against the counter (something both Mary and Bill had always told her off for doing in the old days) and waited until the family had all finished reading it.

"You were kidnaped by another monster?" Matt asked skeptically. "So there's another _world_ besides this one, where all the people are... well... like _you_?" he added.

"Yes," she said, smiling, and she couldn't keep the joy out of her voice. If only she could take her family back with her... She didn't belong in this world. It was where she had grown up and been happy and been born, but... she needed someplace where she could roam where she pleased freely, and she couldn't do that here. It made her feel sort of empty inside. Where _did_ she belong?

"You have your own apartmen,t even? Oh deear... what about food? Clothes?" asked Mary. She had hit the nail on the head.

"Well... as for clothes... obviously, I need them. Is it ok... I mean... if I stay in the monster world for a bit? I still haven't gotten used to that freedom yet... and Michael is out of the picture, by the way. He was a jerk," she added.

Mary and Bill looked for a moment as if they were about to say no, absolutely not.

"Definitely," said Matt.

He walked over and stood behind her, putting one warm hand on her shoulder. He leaned down so they were eye level and smiled. She had known that smile for 18 years.

"If it makes you happy, if you can go wherever you want for once, then I say go for it," he said, and she hugged him again. This whoole visit was worth it really.

"I agree. You've earned it," added Mary, and Bill put one hand on his wife's shoulder and nodded, though he didn't say anything.

"I'll go get some of my stuff, then," said Magda, and she turned tail (literally) and headed towards her own bedroom.

She opened the door and a pang of homesickness overwhelmed her. She hadn't known how much she had missed her own bed and her own things.

She layed down on her own bed, the bed she had had since she was 10, and stared at a ceiling she had stared at on every sleepless night for 18 years. She wasn't ready to move out yet. She didn't want to leave all this behind. She knew she couldn't take it all with her, but she wished she could.

Sighing, holding back unshed tears, she opened her dresser drawers and began taking things out. Other skirts, some short, others long, a few pairs of pants, mostly black with red trimming or corset laces or pieces of metal. She really liked these things. She also took out a few shirts. She didn't need them, really, as she didn't have any breasts like human women did, but they had kept her warm. Included were a few hand knit tops that Mary had made for her. One sky blue, one midnight purple. They were short sleeved and fit her perfectly, right down to the holes in the back for her wings. She also "borrowed" one of Matt's t-shirts that she had sometimes wore to bed when she was younger. It still reached her knees, she mused, smiling sadly.

When she had got all she wanted for clothes, she turned to the rest of the room. Her music. Her posters. All her photographs of the trees and leaves and things around the area. Her stuffed toy that she'd had since forever, one eye missing, one armed sewed back on. Her favorite movies on DVD. The DVD player she'd gotten for her 16th birthday.

She sighed dejectedly. She would leave all but a few pictures and books here to stay. Just in case, she decided firmly. She would not cry, She would _not_.

She pried three pictures off her wall. One small one was of the entire family, old country style; Bill in a pair of his usual overalls and boots, holding a shotgun, Matt in a t shirt and jeans, Mary in her usuall housedress, and Magda, sitting in front of them all, her wings relaxed and lowered, all their hands on either one of her shoulders. They were all smiling.

The second picture she pried off was slightly bigger, but it was a full screen view of the log cabin, the yard, the trees in all their autumn glory and part of the meadow. In front of the house stood Bill, Mary and Matt, the dog and the horse. The third picture she took was bigger than the last two, but it was of herself and Matt wrestling in the mud when she was 9 years old, and Matt was about 14. They were both covered in mud and laughing. She smiled, remembering. That had been fun.

She crammed all her clothes, and the pictures into one of Matt's older school bags and zipped it up.

She took one last, long look at the bedroom she had lived in for her whole life and closed the door for she didn't know how long.

Back out in the kitchen, the rest of the family were discussing something, and when she came into full view, wearing a clean skirt and the blue knit top Mary made her, they all stopped.

"What?" she said, feeling like she had missed something.

Mary brought something out from behind her back then, wrapped badly and rather hastily, it looked like.

"We were going to give you this for your nineteenth birthday, but since... well... we thought we;'d give it to you now. Be sure to take lots of pictures for us, Magda," she said, her eyes kind and warm and teary. Magda took it, very emotional, and unwrapped what turned out to be a brand new camera, a specialty. Nikon5000. It must have cost them a fortune.

"I started work just after you left and I helped out a bit for it," said Matt, raising an arm, and Magda carefully stowed the camera and the film enclosed into her bag along with the rest of her things.

She gave Matt and her parents one last, longer hug before heading back towards her brother's closet and her own, new world.

But why did it feel like she was leaving home, rather than going to it?

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Next chapter wil be up sooner, but the more reviews I get, the sooner you'll get it!! Please review!!!!


	7. Door vault ride, Dr Evan Cuthbert

Hey, I told you I had something up my sleeve...I didn't ? Hmm... Ok, then I'll say it . "I have something up my sleeve for this chapter, and I think you're gonna like it". REVIEW!!!!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She came back through the door and nearly died.

"Yaahhh!" che cried, grabbing onto the doorframe for dear life. She had to, because when she saw what the alternative was, she nearly had a heart attack.

There was nothing before or below he except vast, empty space. Doors moved on tracks here and there, but the ground lay perhaps hundreds of miles below her.

"Shit," she said bleakly. Then she rememberd. She had wings; why not try flying?

It was worth a shot and she couldn't stay here forever. She took the bag off her back and cllutched it in her arms, staying half in and half out of the now-useless door. The power was off, and her leg hit the stacks of doors behind her.

She gave her wings a few experimental flaps, testing to see how strong and how fast she could go. When she felt like she had it under control, she took a deep breath and flung herself over the edge.

"Aaaaahhhhh!!!!!" she screamed. Her breath was being taken away from her as she fell and she swore he heart stopped.

_Flap your wings, you moron!!_

Oh. Right. She had wings.

She spread them and immediately, slowing her fall. She flapped them a few times, strong and hard, pumping them as fast as she could, and she stopped falling alltogether.

"Imagine that," she said airily, as if one commenting on the weather and not one who had just plummeted hundreds of feet without knowing if they could fly or not.

She hovered for a moment, clutching her bag in a death grip, then decided she didn't know how to steer or go forward. This was _not_ good.

She swallowed and leaned forward slightly, flapping her wings like she normally did when she wanted to hug herself with them, around and up and down, around and up and down. Amazingly, she went forward!

"Sweet!" she cried.

She didn't know which way she was going, or where, but this was exhilerating! She didn't have to walk anymore! If she had known she could fly, she would never have been late for work.

Now if she could just figure out how to land.

The thought cheered her up so much that she burst out laughing. This was great!

She tried twisting her body around sideways, as if she were swimming, and amazingly, she did a 360 in midair, so her wings were sideways. The world tilted crazily and she decided not to do that again.

She flew for awhile, reveling in the pure, unadulterated joy of it, when she saw the door far, far below.

She decided to dive.

She did a flip in midair and swept her wings straight back, letting herself fall like a stone. Very soon and very very fast, the world became one big blur and all she could see were the doors in her way and her objective; the ground.

She saw it before she could dodge. A door freshly called sped out of it's resting place and knocked her out of the air with an almighty crash.

"Ah!" she cried, feeling something snap.

She fell the remaining 10 feet very ungracefully, landing in a heap on the ground. Below her she felt glass break in her bag. One of her pictures had broke. One thought broke the murk before she blacked out.

_Damn you, Mikey and Sulley._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Strange dreams... loud, echoing noises... blurry shapes and colors... a loud CRACK...

She awoke with a jolt, as if someone had flipped a switch in her brain, and she realized she was in some sort of monster doctor's office. She lay on a bed on her stomach, cool crisp sheets beneath her, fluorecent lights above.

"Take it easy, you," said a sharp male voice, and she craned her neck as far back as it would go and saw a monster doctor with smaller wings than she, yellow mottled skin and a white jacket on. He had kind blue eyes and a scruff of tufty looking fur around his neck and shoulders.

"You broke your wing, you foolish girl. What were you thinking, flying around a door vault? It won't be the same, you know," he lectured her sternly, but his hands were gentle enough. He was wrapping a sort of splint around the edge of her left wing. She looked back and saw with some relief that it was on the longest membrane, right near the end. She couldn't curl it anymore.

"What about insurance?" she asked groggily. She must be drugged.

"None. This is minor, but you have a few bruises and contusions. You should call out of work for the next week at least. Where do you work?" He was making idle conversation.

"Brock's butchery... I cut the meat," she grunted as he hit a particularly painfull spot. Damn stupid door vault.

"Have you ever flown before?" he asked incredulously.

"No," she said, figuring she may as well tell the truth. She didn't have the muscle mass for a regular flyer.

"You should start more; you need to build up these muscles before you can avoid thing slike doors," he said grimly, although she detected a hint of amusement in it.

"Fine," she said wearily, and she relaxed and let him finish her wing.

"What's your name? We didn't find any ID on you," he asked.

"Oh, man, my stuff? Did you get it?" she asked, remembering her bag full of clothes and pictures. Her camera!!!! What about her camera!!

"Hold still!" Your things are all fine, but one of your pciture frames broke. You're lucky nothing else was broken. You're also lucky I and my staff never ask a lot fo questions. Like why you were in a door vault alone anyway," the doctor chuckled.

"My camera??" she intoned.

"Is fine," said the doctor, and he placed one large hand squarely in the middle of her back and forced her to lay still.

"I'm almost finished. Then you can go," he said gently.

She could scream.

When he was finished with her wing, feeling along the joints and making sure there wasn't anything else wrong, he let her sit up.

She winced as her head spun and her world tilted lazily. Her stomach hurt, her legs hurt, her muscles felt wobbly. Especially the muscles in her sides and down her hips to her ankles.

"You may feel a bit dizzy, but it's normal for a little vertigo after flying. I'm going to write you a doctor's note excusing you from work for a week so you can heal. And no flying until I say so. My name is Dr. Evan Cuthbert. I've been appointed your regular care physician. Is that alright?" he asked. He went and sat at a desk and began writing on a scrap of paper.

"Sure. My name is Magda Emily Britain," she said quietly, still wondering how on earth she was going to get back to her apartment when she didn't think she could stand.

Grr, she would get those two back if it was the last thing she did!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

She's talking about Mike and Sulley there at the end.

Please review!!!!!!


	8. Cookies

Finally a chapter from Randall's POV. Enjoy and review!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Randall growled irritably and pounded his fist on his wall.

That _damn_ girl!

Why had she interfered??

He looked down at the crusty, dark red lines across his wrist and inner forearm and snorted in disgust; his father was bound to notice and beat the hell out of him for it.

He put his headphones on and sat down at his shabby little desk, numerous burn marks and gouges on the surface and began doing some stupid homeowrk on human history.

That damnable girl... why did she have to interfere?? He knew perfectly well what he was doing... yet there was such an open, curious expression on herface, he was almost sure she had had no idea what he had intendded to do. But how could anyone who lived in the city be so _stupid_?

_Maybe she isn't from around_ he thought to himself, doodling idly on his paper.

He didn't have any idea how right he was. In fact, as it turned out, she couldn't have been from farther away.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Shortly after he finished his homework, and after he had made his own dinner in the mcirowave (his father asleep on the couch amidst a mountain of chip wrappers, beer and soda cans and junk food) the doorbell rang.

"Who the hell-?" he wondered aloud. He hastily pulled the ratty sleeves of his 5-year old shirt down over the scabs on his arm and opened the front door, which was falling off its hinges.

It was _her_. And of all the strange and random things, she was holding a secondhand-looking tray piled high with cookies.

"Hi," she said a tad shyly, and he took in her appearance once more.

She wore a deep purple kniot top that blended well with her light teal skin and a clean skirt that reached her knees. She had a reptillian stance, her face was cute and shaped sort of like his, but her eyes were wide, green and set into her skull. She h adn't done anything to her hair; it remained down her waist in untamed waves and knots. He supposed she would be pretty if she would stop giving him that inquiring look and stopped trying to be nice to him. She moved her wings, making a pained face, and he saw that her left one was in some sort of bandage near the tip.

"Can I come in?" she asked, gesturing with her chin to the plate of cookies. Randall couldn't believe this. A girl wanted to actually aknowledge his existence?

He spared a glance at his father and the thought of what he would do if he woke up to find his son alone in a room with an unknown girl made him stop and think.

"Outside. Come on... I have a fort," he admitted a bit shyly; he had made that fort years ago and only went in there when he really needed to get away.

"Um... ok," she said, and she stepped back off the dilapidated porch to let him outside. It wasn't as cold as it had been the day before, but it was windy. It took the three fronds on his head and bopped him on the side of the neck with them; it tore through the girl's hair and made her look like a goddess in a painting, only she wasn't as godly-looking. The couldy gray sky seemed to make her skin look... more vibrant, though. Blue-er... strange, he thought. Maybe she was a chameleon like him, just more subtle.

He led her around to his backyard, such as it was. It was nothing more than a chain link fence covered in matted, creeping vines and tangled weeds that almost obscured vision through the chain links. His "fort" was actually just a small, knocked-together shack on the ground, the wood starting to rot and splinter. It smelled like dank wood, but at least it cut out some of the wind. And it was quiet.

"Uh... sorry about the other day. I made you some cookies... I just didn't get any sleep or they'd be a bit better," said the girl. She was about 3 inches taller than he was, but then, he wasn't going to be very tall; he'd only grown an inch in the last year and he was already 18.

She sat on one of the shabby benches he'd erected when he was 15 and took the plastic wrap off the tray of cookies and set them down beside her. Randall caught a hint of chocolate and brown sugar. His mother used to make cookies like that...before she died. He would not think about that now. Not _now. _

"Uh... thanks. For the cookies," he stammered. He took one and bit a chunk out of it; they were actually pretty good. Brown sugar, chocolate chips and a bit of oatmeal. They were still warm.

"Just done," she admitted.

Neither one of them knew quite what to say about the other day's event; the scabs on his arm lay as evidence. Finally, he broke the silence.

"What happened the other day was nothing... I... I've just been wierd lately," he admitted, rubbign the scales on the back of his neck; the skin there was starting to peel. He would shed soon, and he would be allowed to stay home for a day until he was done.

"It wasn't nothing, kid. You had a scalpel! What the hell were you trying to do?" she exploded, her curious demeanor giving way to a fierce teenage girl. She bared sharp, pointed fangs the size and shape of needles and he finally understod; she wasn't reptillian; she was aquarian. A water monster minus the fins and gills. He could have laughed at himself for thinking her reptillilan, but then, they weren't that far apart on the evolutionary chain.

He growled. What business of this was hers, anyway?? A girl whos name he didn't even know asking him about his life?!

"What the hell do you think I was trying to do? I was trying to leave, to get out of here, to go out! I hate this life, I hate myself, I hate school, I don't want to be home with my lousy worthless father anymore, or be tormented bgy the nightmares of my mother dying or -" he stopped raving; he hadn't meant to mention his nightmares. He had lost his temper.

The girl narrowed her eyes slightly, looking at him a bit closer.

"My name is Magda Britain. I live out on Bracknell road, apartment b6. In case you'd like to know," she said. She got to her feet and left him sitting there, still holding half a cookie.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hope u liked it, please review!!!!


	9. Don't know

Hey, finally, an update, I had to update a few of my other stories on the Harry Potter section of fanfiction.

Magda ponders her meeting with the boy whos name she still doesn't even know.

PLEASE REVIEW!!!!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Magda stormed into her apartment and slammed the door, sitting down in her ratty chair in a huff; she too had lost her temper.

She sighed and stripped her knit top off; her chest was still slightly achy from her disastrous flight through the door vault and the scratch of the knit material irritated her tender skin. She had nothing to show; her chest was as flat as a male human's and for some reason, she had no nipples. They had figured out she wasn't a mammal long ago anyway, although it was apparent she was a placental; she had a belly button.

Actually, she was something like an amphibean and a mammal, but it wasn't the matter at hand.

She searched through some of the things that had spilled from her school bag and looked again at her camera; a single, long scratch along the side of the lens house was the only testament to her flight; the rest was pristine.

She loaded the film and snapped a test picture of herself in a small mirror.

She got to her feet and opened her window, sitting on the edge of it, so half her back side was hanging out the window. The wind took her hair and played with it, whipping it back behind her head, the wild curly locks lashing the side of the building and her back. At least it was out of her face.

She pointed her camera at the distant treeline, the autumn oranges and reds and purples and snapped another photo. Lowering the camera, she squinted slightly; an eye test administered when she was a child had revealed that compared to her brother's perfect 20/20 vision, hers was far superior; halk-like. She could just barely make out the boy's house miles in the distance, but all she could see was the glare of the sun off the roof.

She sighed, the meeting on her mind once again; even her favorite past time of taking pictures couldn't take her mind off the boy.

She came back inside her apartment and closed the window. She set her camera down on the smalle, home made table the rest of her belongings sat on and lay down on a mattress; it was one of her rare days off, she may as well take advantage of a good day's sleep.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Randall sat in his fort, ignoring the biting cold, which had gotten worse with the wind. It was getting later in the year and he could tell winter wasn't far off.

He sat there morosely munching on cookies until they were half gone; she really wasn't a bad cook, he thought appreciatively, finishing his fifth.

He supposed it could have gone better. He didn't know why he had lost his temper. But dammit, she should just mind her own business.

_Since when has anyone _else_ ever given this much attention to you, Randall? Be glad she's at least yelling at you; she _could_ just ignore you like everyone else. Maybe she likes you..._

He snorted, nearly inhaling his sixth cookie down the wrong tube. Right. A girl, even one as not-so-pretty as her, would never like someone like _him_. He supposed if she tamed her hair a bit and dressed like a normal monster in the city, she would be sort of pretty, but he got the feeling that wasn't why she was insisting on interfering.

_Maybe she's just like you_, the voice in his head said. _Maybe she just wants a friend, and not one who wants to kill himself_.

He would have to think more on it.

He picked up the remaining plate of cookies and brought them inside, making sure they went straight to his room and under his desk where his father would be too lazy to bend over and look.

He sighed and flumped down on his bed, peeling a small swatch of semi-transparent lilac skin off the back of his neck. The skin on his left wrist was beginning to peel as well. He gave it another day before it as a full out molt.

He sat there staring at his floor, thinking about her, Magda was her name. Why did she want so badly to help him? Should he believe her? Should he even accept her help?

He shook his head and rubbed his left wrist, loosening the skin there.

"Randall!" his father yelled up the stairs to him. He groaned and pulled the sleeve of his shirt down, prepared to see what it was his father wanted this time.

He went down to see what he wanted and his father was holding up the scalpel. His blood froze and he swore his heart skipped a beat. He was done for. His father was going to kill him.

He stopped in his tracks and just stared, trying to look inconspicuous.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded.

Randall looked nothing like his father. He was short, wiry and serpentine; his father was tall, thick, his entire length enough to wrap around a car and crush it; he was overweight, dark red in color and he had black hair. Randall most resembled his mother. The only thing he had inherited from his father was his temper and his eyes.

He looked around him quickly before answering. The window at the bottom of the stairs was wide open, even though it was cold out.

"Not mine,." he said, and he vanished into thin air, camoflauging himself, and he darted through the window with one thought in mind.

Bracknell road. Apartment 6b. It was either that, or face a very angry dad.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Please review!!!!!!!


	10. Randall's reprieve

Hey, new chapter update! I should have a special Thanksgiving and Christmas chapter sometime soon, even though technically, monsters don't (as far as I know) celebrate either one.

Randall runs from his father when he learns that his dad found the scalpel and demands to know what it's doing coated in dried blood.

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

He made sure to dart past their own yard before reappearing. He knew his father would be angry as hell at him when he decided to go back home, but for now, he would wait for his fther to figure it out. The best thing to do was wait.

He slowed a bit and looked for Bracknell road. Surprisingly, it was the first brock apartment building he came to, on his left. It was shabby, of that he had no doubt. It was run down and old, of that he was sure.

He aproached the front door and looked to his right. There waws a panel of vuttons there, each labeled with a faded name. He looked for 6b. It was labeled as "marble".

He buzzed it anyway and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, he gave up and backed up aways and began searching the windows. It wasn't something he normally did; after a few minutes, he thought he saw a flash of wing membrane and teal skin, and reaching down quickly with one of his lower hands, he tossed himself a pebble and chucked it at the grimy window.

The monster inside looked out the window and he saw with some relief that it was her.

She opened the window and craned her head around, her long hair falling in a thick, tangled sheet of dark red hair.

"What do you want?" she called down, seing him at last.

"Can I come up?" he replied, deliberatley not answering her question.

She scrutinized him for a moment, appearing to think a moment, and finally said, "alright, I suppose."

Randall opened the front door and began climbing; it figured she was on the top floor.

Finally, out of breath, he reached the top floor. The walls were a peeling yellow and the floor was carpeted in brown. There were only three doors. He knocked on the one marked 6b and she opened it a moment later. She had no shirt on, but was wearing the same skirt. Looking closer, he could make out a couple livid bruises only a few shades darker than her skin. It finally hit him; here she was, injured and obviously in pain, and she had still taken the time to bake cookies AND go through the trouble of going to see him, and he had been a jerk.

"Well? Are you going to stand there or do you want to come in?" she asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

He stepped inside her apartment and ersisted the urge to comment.

It was small and rather shabby, but it had a strange homey feeling. Milk crates with wooden boards for tables or chairs, one overstuffed recliner chair, a couple photos on the wall and a single mattress with two thick quilts on them.

He took a seat on the edge of the mattress and waitedfor her to emerge from what looked like a tiny kitchen. She re-ammmerged with two steaming mugs of something that turned out to be hot chocolate.

"Err.. thanks," he said, blowing on his before taking a sip. It was rich and creamy, infused with warm milk.

"I grew up in Vermont, we have chocolate like that all the time," she said, waving an impatient hand. She took a sip of her own without blowing on it and set it down gently on one of her homemade tables. She took a seat in the armchair and continued to loo at him curiously.

"Why'd you leave," she said nonchalantly; it wasn't a question.

"My dad..er... found the scalpel," he replied.

"Mmm. So you ran away."

"I suppose. I don't really hav anywhere else to go, and you gave me your address, so I just thought..." he trailed off, not really sure what he wanted to say.

"Thought you could come here," she finished for him.

Randall gave a noncommital shrug and a jerk of his head.

"So?" she asked.

Randall took another sip of the chocolate, making him warmer.

"So... what?" he asked.

"Well, I have an extra air mattress from when I first got here, if you wanna kop here for a few days. How long were you planning on waitingbefore going home," she said, finishing her chocolate and getting up to take it back into the kitchen.

Randall was quite taken aback. Who on earth would invite some totaly stranger to stay for a few days? She didn't even know his _name! _

That was when he took a closer look at the pictures on her walls.

_Humans_.

So she was either a banished monster, or... she was _born_ to banished parents?

So why would humans take her in?

She came back in and saw him looking at her pictures.

"What are these?" he asked.

"My family. I was born in that meadow," she said, pointing to the wildly overgrown land on the edge of the woods.

"Humans can't be our family. We're monsters," said Randall. The very idea was ridiculous. Humans were toxic!

She glared at him with light green eyes and slowled.

"They can be and they are. Mary and Bill raised me like a daughter and I grew up with their son Matt. They're as good a family as any," she retorted.

"Okay, okay, sheesh," he said, putting all four hands up in mock defense.

"I was abandoned and Bill found me when he was out hunting. I lived there ever since," she finished, gazing at the humans in the photograph. Randall resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"So... I can bunk here for awhile?" he asked.

"Sure."

She got right in his face then, her hair falling on either side of ehr face. Her green eyes narrowed slightly and Randall blanched.

"But only if you stop that cutting," she finished.

Randall was so cowed by the look on her face, all he could do was swallow and nod.

"Then you'll find the air mattress rolled up in the closet. There should be extra bedding in there as well. You can leave whenever you want to, but I'm gonna do what Bill did for me when I was feeling depressed," she said matter-of-factly.

"Which is--?" he trailed off, not sure if he was going to like it.

She smiled grimly.

"Make you wear t-shirts," she said.

She was grinning mishciveously, fangs glistening.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Well? What did yo uthink? Please review!!


	11. NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Hey, sorry I haven't updated any of my HP stuff lately. I just got a new job, working retail and tis the season (although not ho ho ho). I've also recently been locked out of the computer until someone gets home, because my stepdad is a prick, so there's that as well. I've also been working on my pokemon fic, called "life is wonderful", so you may want to check it out, because Im really on a roll with it. So sorry I haven't showed lately, but meh... I've been busy lately. Ciao!


	12. Unexpected visit

hey, I know it's been SIX YEARS... so many so that I have no idea where I was even going with this, and normally I'd be tempted to never finish it but people have recently faved and whatnot, so it must still be 'popular'. So I figure why not give it a go.

I do regret making Randall a depressy emo in light of the newest MI movie just coming out, but I'll try to make it work. Hopefully I've gotten better at writing.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

She hadn't been serious about the t-shirt thing, because some monsters never bothered with clothing at all and Randall didn't seem to be an exception, but she had been serious about letting him stay. She knew how grateful SHE was that someone had taken her in when she needed it, instead of leaving her to the wolves.

As she expected, Brock didn't like having to give her a week's paid leave due to injury, but a doctor's note was a doctor's note, though he seemed to think this was deliberately her fault. He'd taken one look at the bandage at the edge of her wing and another at the doctor's signature, and told her to get home. She skedaddled to the grocery store instead.

If she was going to have a teenage boy staying with her at her place for any ammount of time, short or long term she would need more food than what she had. And he was so skinny. She didn't have a ton of money, but she had perhaps fifty dollars left over from her last paycheck and all the bills were paid... she saw no harm in buying some munchies, comfort food like ice cream, sandwhich fixings, deli meat, so on and so forth. She made it back home just as it was getting dark, to find Randall laying curled up like a twelve foot long worm on the air mattress she'd offered him.

"...Hey," was all he said. His voice was muffled and she noticed he was pulling swatches of dead skin off his flank with one of his hands. Her mother had always used baby oil for when she shed hers, but then it was easier for her if she was in water, and she didn't really shed in the normal sense... it seemed he did. Regardless she handed him a bottle of baby oil, and went to put the food away.

"... thanks?"

She smirked and stuck the meat in the fridge, before coming back to sit in her armchair.

"I got some food, if you're hungry," she offered. She didn't really know what to say to him without sounding like his mother. On all accounts this was none of her business, but she was a better person than walking away.

She watched as he began rubbing shed skin off, revealing pearly lavender and shocking cerulean underneath. She did like the blue. He ignored her for a few moments, probably wondering, like her, what one said in this sort of situation without embarassment. It seemed a bit odd to share life stories past what they already knew of each other, and they weren't exactly friends,...

"So, uh... where do you go to school? I was home schooled...," she tried.

He didn't answer her for a moment, focused on getting the rolled up crud out from around one of his skinny little legs. He finally looked up, and gave it a rest.

"Leviathan High," he replied.

She had obviously never heard of it, but nodded for lack of anything better to do.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Eighteen," she replied.

"Same".

"So you're about to graduate?" she wondered.

He gave a vague shrug. "I guess... can't wait, to be honest. I can get outta here finally...,".

"Where will you go? What do monsters usually do when they get out of high school?" she wondered.

He shrugged again.

"College?" she wondered.

"Ha! Yeah... right. When pigs can't fly is when I can afford college...," he huffed.

Magda folded her arms. Here, finally, was a conversation she could have. Matt had given their parents the same argument, being a poor boy from a farm in the middle of nowhere, and she had been there for the entire fight. Apparently now Matt was what he had always wanted to be, making good money; a teacher. She had this.

"Pardon the bluntness, but that's bullshit. There has to be financial assistance programs here, colleges are a business, they aren't about to exclude someone and lose out on that just because they're penniless. You could apply for loans and stuff. What is it you wanna do?" she asked.

The look on Randall's face was a bit on the priceless side. He had never heard anyone be quite so blunt before, and definitely not with him unless it was bullying. Was she trying to convince him to go to college? Like someone who cared what became of him? It sounded petty when he said it like that in his own head, emo some would say, and it kind of disgusted him, but really no one was ever so kind to him. Except a few teachers.

"... you're really optimistic, aren't you?" he asked dully.

She grinned and gave him a shrug of her own. "Uh huh," she said brightly.

Randall facepalmed.

"Great".

I know it's short, and you all deserve more, but things are going on here, dog sick, phone problems, I'm a little short on attention span at the moment. Suffice it to say I'm deciding to tie this into the newest movie just a little, and it won't be a romance thing, just... friendship. I think he needs that, poor guy never gets a break.

tell me what you think!


End file.
